President Putin's Sinister Afghan Anecdote

WASHINGTON - A reporter this weekend asked why nothing exciting comes from these boring U.S.-Russian summits.

"Where do some questions come from?" objected Vladimir Putin. "People expect from us constantly some kind of revolutions." Instead, Putin said, just be happy Russia and America are friends. Then, in the summit's most revealing and least-noted moment, Putin shared an example of why it's good to be friends:

"I have never said this in public [before]," Putin said. "When [the U.S.-led] counterterrorist operation began in Afghanistan, we were approached by people, through several channels, we were approached by people who intended to fight against Americans in Afghanistan. And if by that time [U.S.] President [George W.] Bush and I had not formed an appropriate relationship, as we have, so no one knows what turn the developments in Afghanistan would have taken."

Wow. So, when U.S. forces moved into Afghanistan, Putin says "we" were "approached" by "people" eager to start killing Americans.

Did these would-be American-killers "approach" Putin for his permission, his blessing? Or was their "approach" an invitation to Putin to join them? The account is menacingly vague, so let's brainstorm a bit.

Perhaps old-guard KGB elements saw a chance to do to the Americans in Afghanistan what the CIA did to the Soviets. Perhaps Russian extremists wanted to wage a terror war, and were hoping the Kremlin might wink and look away, the way Riyadh does for some Saudis.

But Putin spoke of being approached via "several channels," and that almost sounds like repeated diplomatic overtures. So perhaps Putin received envoys from, say, the Chinese government, to talk about a covert operation to bog America down in Central Asia and bleed it dry.

Whatever this was, it was not a good thing. Nor is it good that the Russian president would trot out such an ominous anecdote. It almost works as a mafia-style threat: Deal with me - some of my partners are real gorillas, and I can only hold them back so long.

Bush had opened the press conference with the usual pleasantries and a welcome to "my friend, Vladimir Putin." He then offered back-to-back statements that, were they less windy, would make a haiku of disconnect: "For decades, when the leaders of our two countries met, they talked mainly of missiles and warheads, because the only common ground we shared was the desire to avoid catastrophic conflict. In recent years, the United States and Russia have made great progress in building a new relationship."

What - we no longer agree on avoiding catastrophe? Look, if we're such great friends, why do we still have around 30,000 nuclear weapons - including thousands on hair-trigger launch alert? (China, in distant third place, has about 400.)

Under the Nonproliferation Treaty - the one we keep rolling up to whack North Korea and Iran with on the nose - Russia and the United States also have solemn obligations to work toward complete nuclear disarmament. (Pie-in-the-sky? Perhaps, but then so is expecting other nations never to try to produce a single nuke.)

So, what happens if some day, when it matters, Putin's not around anymore and his gorilla-partners take over? As long as we're all pals now, wouldn't this be the moment to junk about 29,000 nukes?

(Dear reader: Please return now to the second paragraph, which begins "Where do some questions come from?", and continue reading.)

Matt Bivens, a former editor of The St. Petersburg Times, writes the Daily Outrage for The Nation magazine. [ www.thenation.com ]

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Putin didn't have to oppose us to make our lives miserable in Afghanistan. All he had to do was "nothing". We couldn't have pointed a finger at him, there would be nothing to blame.

Our Clinton-era tilt toward the Chechens would have richly deserved such treatment, if this were about tit-for-tat. There are no doubt die-hards who hold grudges from the first Afghan war, and some of this may have affected Russia's policy toward the our recent war in Iraq; Iraq was essentially a Warsaw Pact nation, and the Russians had a long history there. Standing on the sidelines and watching us smash the Soviet-trained and armed Iraqi army twice must have been a bitter pill for some of the old timers.

Thats beside any oil considerations.

You can take it as a threat, but I have no doubt that he was indeed approached by our enemies and continues to be approached by them. This garden needs to be tended. Every arab terrorist gang that we contend with, except for the Saudi ones, had Soviet backing during the Cold War. For Russia to be merely neutral as we march into Baghdad, or marginally aligned with us as we take on Al Qaeda, may seem like small potatoes if you don't remember the bad old days, but in the bad old days the terrorists could pass through East Germany on their way to where ever and there was nothing we could do. In the bad old days we wouldn't have dreamed of marching on Soviet-aligned Baghdad. Unless you were willing to risk Superpower Confrontation, and prior to Reagan no one ever was.

This may not be optimal but it beats the bad old days. Imagine trying to fight the Taliban without access to Central Asia and with a deniable supply line to Talib Kabul from both Russia and China. With India still aligned with Russia, as it was before. But we control the Stans, thanks to Russian acquiescence, and what remains of the Talibs are holed up in Pakistan's frontier provinces.

That warm embrace between Bush and Putin was originally intended as a rebuke to EU arrogance, but it has paid huge dividends.

Orrrrrr... it could be that some bad guys approached Russia in hopes that they might help undermine the American efforts in Afghanistan.

Use Occam's Razor. No need to go all tinfoil on this topic. No threat need be implied; the great likelihood is that Putin was merely relating what happened.

A more key point is that Putin's feeling free to say this. That strongly suggests whoever approached him isn't around anymore to make trouble for him.

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